Thursday, July 26, 2007

Evolution of insanity

Yesterday I wrote over at No Fear of the Future that Pope Benedict has come out in defense of evolution. Although I'm wary about his various pronouncements, I view this in a generally positive light. In short, it made me happy.

I should've known it wouldn't last. The happiness, that is. Today I learn via Byzantium's Shores that our beloved (*cough* 39 percent of the vote *cough*) Governor Rick Perry has decided to abandon all pretense of competency and appoint avowed creationist Don McLeroy to head up the State Board of Education.

Texas Freedom Network president Kathy Miller, whose group advocates for the strict separation of church and state, said Mr. Perry deserves an "F" for appointing "a clear ideologue who has repeatedly put his own personal and political agendas ahead of sound science, good health and solid textbooks for students."

She noted that in 2003, Dr. McLeroy was one of four board members who voted against proposed high school biology textbooks because he felt their coverage of evolution was "too dogmatic" and did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin's theory of how life on Earth evolved from lower forms.

"Dr. McLeroy will now be in charge of the board's scheduled revision of the state's science curriculum standards, an area where he has already cast his lot with extremists who want to censor what our schoolchildren learn," said Ms. Miller, whose group frequently battles social conservatives over textbooks and other issues.

The Austin American-Statesman chimes in with a somewhat exasperated editorial, in which the nicest thing they could find to say about McLeroy was that he wasn't the worst possible choice:

In 2001, McLeroy and a majority of the board rejected the only Advanced Placement textbook for high school environmental science because its views on global warming and other events didn't comport with the beliefs of the board majority. The book wasn't factual and was anti-American and anti-Christian, the majority claimed. Meanwhile, dozens of colleges and universities were using the textbook, including Baylor University, the nation's largest Baptist college.

The Texas Freedom Network is on top of this travesty, and working to drum up scrutiny of McLeroy's potential future activities on the board. The Texas Citizens for Science website doesn't seem to be as up to date. This is troubling, because this is an issue they could do well to publicize and bring to the public's (and media's) attention.